I had a revelation on my drive home today. The way I’ve been handling these ammo updates is not very efficient at all. I’ve been trying to find a way to provide the updates more often while not sacrificing my soul and all my free time to do so; I may have done it.

As of this moment, I will no longer be posting new updates regarding ammunition availability. Instead, I am working on an entirely new page for the blog that will have permanent links to every supplier I check, even if there is no ammo in stock. The updates will come in the way of updates to the page itself. I’ll change the information beside the links to show what is available each time I update things.

The goal of this is to ease the pressure on myself by eliminating all the redundant typing that I do each week. In addition, it will clean things up. I will no longer be continuously building a list of posts that become irrelevant when a new one is added. One other benefit to this method is that I will be providing all my suppliers, even if they have nothing in stock one week. Hopefully this will help others discover suppliers that they may not have known about before. Since I can’t cover every caliber out there, maybe having that extra resource will be at least a little help to those who are looking for other types of ammo.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please let me know. If there are any other calibers that you would like included, please leave a comment. If you’re vocal about what you would like to see I’ll do my best to include them. Having everything on one page will make it a lot easier for me to add other calibers.

One last thing! As requested in a previous update, I’ve added 7mm Remington Magnum to the list. From now on you’ll be able to find availability for that caliber on my blog as well.

I went to Walmart today and was shocked to see some .223 ammo on the shelf. I walk past the cabinet every time I go in there but its usually just a waste of time. Today was different. There wasn’t a lot of ammo on the shelf, but there was a bunch of Russian TulAmmo.

Some people might not like the stuff, especially since its steel cased, but if you’ve been following my blog for a while then you know I love the stuff. Its cheap, reliable, and very accurate for $0.25 a round (as of last year). So when I saw 20 boxes of .223 on the shelf, I bought my limit of 3. Might go back tomorrow as well.

The price has gone up, I’m sure you had guessed that. But I think I can swing an extra $0.30 a box. That extra 1.5 pennies a round certainly isn’t going to bother me at all.

And now you’re saying, “sure, they had some .223, but tomorrow there will be none left”. To that I say, 20 boxes isn’t a lot, but its far more than we’ve seen in the past. And in addition to .223, TulAmmo was also available in .40 S&W and .45ACP. Each of those sections were full as well. There were virtually no other manufacturers present anywhere else on the shelves.

This could mean two things:

TulAmmo has upped production or began exporting more to match the increased demand.

Walmart finally received an order they placed back in December before the Great Ammo Drought of 2013 went into affect.

The reason I don’t think this is a back-ordered shipment is because my local Walmart has told me they never stopped ordering. They continued ordering and everything they put on the shelves sold the same day. While I never saw that with my own two eyes, I can’t call them liars either. Local rumors spoke of lines in sporting goods every morning when the shipments were scheduled to be put on the shelf. Most of the ammo never even made it behind the glass.

But this is all just speculation. I’m no expert on business or firearms and I don’t claim to be. I can only make statements based on what I see and experience first hand.

Regardless, this is a positive thing. Local shops are still struggling to get ammo on the shelves, but cheap ammo is unheard of. Everything I have found locally has been high dollar brass stuff, and for me that’s just not appealing. Is this a sign that cheap (inexpensive) ammo is once again a possibility? I don’t know. All I know is I now have 60 more rounds of my favorite brand of rifle ammo.

Life has been pretty crazy lately. Work is twice as busy as it was the past few weeks and its all I can do to stay on top of my work throughout the day. At home, my fiance is about to graduate from college. Stress is abundant, but I’m still going to do my best to keep up with the blog.

As far as ammo is concerned, the pattern continues and .45 ammo is still the most widely available. Most of the places I checked have about 10 different options each. The availability in local shops is still pretty bad but I’ve noticed that seems to be picking up again as well. Hopefully that continues.

Thanks for everyone’s continued support and I hope that I’m able to keep on posting into the future. If things get too busy or stressful, I’ll cut back on the blog a bit but hopefully I wont have to.

Also, sorry to anyone who has previously communicated with me at my Yahoo email address. Or to anyone who’s page I was subscribed to using my yahoo address. I’ve stopped using it almost completely after it was hacked a few weeks ago and because of that I’m sure I probably missed a few things. My new email address is BackyardShooter@aol.com, so feel free to contact me there if you have any questions or comments.

Well I’m back to blogging more consistently again. It feels good to actually get back to this. The survival updates are fun too but I like gun stuff a lot more. I don’t have a whole lot to say tonight, so lets just get right down to what you came here for.

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Ammo is still plenty available but prices are still pretty high, but I feel like I’m just repeating what I say every time. Its good to see that GunBot has started including more calibers and suppliers as well. Really makes for a much better list than I can provide anymore. But I don’t intend to quit anytime soon.

Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions. You can also email me if you prefer. I don’t get a lot of comments or emails so I take time to answer each one I receive. Comments, suggestions, and tips are always appreciated.

There are only a few days left in March so I thought I would do another ammo update. Spring is officially here and its getting warm outside. With that comes more opportunities to go out and shoot so make sure you get some ammo while you can if you haven’t already.

Here’s what was available as of 10:00pm on Thursday, March 28th, 2013:

Its clear that 9mm has taken a hit since my last update just 5 days ago. Everything else seems to have remained about the same. Prices are still high, but there’s nothing we can do about that but grit our teeth and move on. The days of cheap ammo may well be dead and buried.

The poll I ran last week asked the question, “How often do you practice? (Dry-fire exercises included)”. There were 21 votes during the week it was posted and the results were pretty much what I expected.

11 people voted that they practiced weekly, 5 voted for monthly, and 5 voted for other answers. The results would seem to indicate that the majority of people practice every week or every month. That’s about where I’m at as well; I usually get to practice every two weeks or so.

I’ve mentioned this before in a few older posts: Shooting is a skill that fades quickly when you don’t practice. Taking only a few weeks off can significantly impact your results. Shooting a gun is much like riding a bike because you’ll never forget how to do it. But its also like bowling because it requires precision and consistency. When you don’t practice, it takes longer to get built back up. You can’t stay on top of your game without practice.

I’m not suggesting you practice every day. Who could afford the ammo for that anyway? I do think everyone should practice though. Its essential in order to maintain your shooting skills. Enough time off makes you forget even the basics. Re-learning them is almost as hard the second time as it was the first time and that’s why my current bowling average is 40 pins less than in was 3 years ago.

So this weekend (its supposed to be very nice if you live in VA or surrounding areas) get out there and practice. I know you’ve been hoarding ammo since The Great Ammo Drought of 2013 began and so have I. Since ammo is returning to the shelves and becoming available again finally, its time we get back out there and refine those skills we’ve worked so hard to attain!

What are your thoughts on this issue? How often do you practice and why? Do you think everyone should practice every day or every week? At what point do you start losing what you’ve learned? I’m interested to hear other peoples’ experiences on this.

I’m sure a few of you noticed that I didn’t post over the weekend aside from my pistol ammo update Saturday morning. Part of the reason was that I wanted a break and to spend some time with my fiance (which I did). The other reason is better described in this parody song over on YouTube (this video contains spoilers).

That’s right, I was trapped in a Game of Thrones marathon. I absolutely love that show. I’m not a huge fan of all the sex and blood (this is not a show for children) but the story line itself is pretty cool. Re-watched the entire 1st season and started watching the 2nd. So that’s why I didn’t take much time to post.

But I’m back now, with an ammo update. Hopefully that’ll make up for my slacking off. Here’s what was available as of March 25th, 2013 at 12:55pm:

Looking pretty good isn’t it? Well, when you’re only looking at a list I guess it does. Looking at prices could bring even the strongest man to tears. Hopefully the prices start dropping as availability picks up again. We can dream right?

As always, take a second to subscribe if you haven’t already. Staying subscribed will alert you as soon as I post my updates like this so you can be the first to know what’s available. And please take a second to vote in the poll on the left of the page if you haven’t already. Gives me something else to talk about next week.